I initially tried to stall for time, but then thought "No, I can create a narrative out of this."

Director's commentary:-Google for your name and city. Apparently you're dead, but you were a very successful neurologist.-I sent the mustache wax first since I was concerned you'd shave at the end of November.-I honestly don't know if those suckers fall into the "tasty" or "horribad" category. I've heard rumors it's the latter. You'll have to let us know.-The coded message was supposed to be a haiku but I apparently screwed it up My notes say it was supposed to be "messages" on page 169 but I apparently sent you a different page number. Whoops.

I initially tried to stall for time, but then thought "No, I can create a narrative out of this."

Director's commentary:-Google for your name and city. Apparently you're dead, but you were a very successful neurologist.-I sent the mustache wax first since I was concerned you'd shave at the end of November.-I honestly don't know if those suckers fall into the "tasty" or "horribad" category. I've heard rumors it's the latter. You'll have to let us know.-The coded message was supposed to be a haiku but I apparently screwed it up My notes say it was supposed to be "messages" on page 169 but I apparently sent you a different page number. Whoops.

Hope you enjoyed your trollmas.

You made a grumpy old man very happy this year. I've eaten a ton of the gummie bears and washed them down with scotch like any good spy would do. I have trimmed my beard, but I keep it full all year around so no worries about shaving. I plan to annoy the piss out of my coworkers with the annoy-o-tron and there will be possible para king with the lollipops.

YUMMY!! Another variety, two actually, more bacon and chocolate! Just in time too, only one piece of the Marini's Dark Chocolate Covered Bacon left. I guess I better slow down and see if number three ties them all together.

Thanks Santa!! I know who you are but you're just another Sekrit Santa to the rest of us!

With a note! I never had Santa pegged for a kittens and fabulous kind of guy, but I'm sure the North Pole is awful humdrum - I'm sure the splash of colour is a nice change.

In addition to the note, stuff! I had vouchsafed to Santa that I was a member in good standing of the glorious PC gaming master race -

Santa must've checked my credentials and found them solid. This may or may not be installing simultaneously with this post's composition.

But wait - there's more! Brain-go-fast-beans, from far off North Cackalacky!

As instructed, I gave them a whirl - it was delicious. I'm not so far along into coffee snobbery so as to say things like 'notes of fruit' or some such, but it was bloody good coffee.

Lastly, tasty condimentery, linked to Santa's identity -

This looks really interesting - it's got tomatoes and sweet potatoes before peppers on the ingredient listing, as well as honey, apple cider, wine, molasses, and brown sugar in there as well. Can't wait to try it.

Thank you, Santa! Everything's awesome!::REVERSE STALKING CAP ON::

So. The bottle o' sauce says Cackalacky, and is made in Chapel Hill. The note refers me to the bottle and the thread. So....

Hrmmm....

ENHANCE!

ENNNNHAAAAAANNNNNNCCCCEEEE!

EMBIGGENIFY!

KHAAAAAANNNNNN!

Ha!

zero cool, j'accuse!

Thanks again to all the Sekrit Santa elven team for a great time, and thanks to everyone who plays along. This is one of the best silly fun internet thingies going.

The package actually arrived last Thursday, but it took me a while to get pictures. The cats were AWOL for the unboxing, which turned out to be unfortunate since there was actually something in the box for them. The one time they didn't have their noses in every box we touch and they missed out. They will never live this down.

Thanks Shiori!

I spoiler tagged the close up shots of the individual items:

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I think I will toss this in the First Aid kit in the jeep.

There are things in this book I made when I was a kid. Looks like fun to play around with some of this again.

My wife asked me if the ball was for me or the cats. Maybe me and the cats...

The Survival Kit has one interesting item: an Energy Nugget. I'm glad there was a picture of it on the back of the tin since I was at a loss to figure it out without opening it up.

Aeryn did show up to test drive the Zig-n-Zag Ball. She was a little dubious about it, but I suspect that her brother will be all over it.

So, having done the find-a-word, spending a bit of time reverse stalking, and a little bit of deduction, I say my Santa in Paul M.

Hey, I was just reading through the thread for the first time (I'm such a procrastinator), and I noticed that there are little lines at the end of the letter your Santa sent you. I'm thinking that might be a clue as to the username's length, maybe? Looks like it's only 1 word.

Last week I got another message and tracking number from Migrant Programmer letting me know that he still had another surprise. Low and behold, there was a box from the far off land of Canadia waiting for me when I got in from work. Let's dig in!

The limericks continue!

My wife has already called dibs on these.

I'll be trying a square from the brew bar for dessert tonight.

I'm not entirely sure what to make of this, but I'm intrigued. I'm thinking I'll be trying this on top of an egg tomorrow.

Where's the drooling smiley when you need it?

Mrs. necklessone: I'm not even going to get to try these, am I?Me: You get a sip. Maybe. If you're good.

This is an amazing box of Canadian (and specifically Nova Scotian) goodness. You rock, Migrant Programmer. Just flat out rock.

I received a burger of the month calendar. (Didn't realize it was a Sekrit Santa gift until my Santa messaged me) Two weeks later, I got another one! Thanks!There's absolutely no reverse stalking info in the package.

Touche Santa, touche! I am battling the evil cigs. That is some quality stalking!

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This looks very promising!

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Alright, I had to open and give this a whiff and a quick taste. This salsa has some serious heat for a medium. I am saving this bad boy for the Super Bowl game! Cannot wait to nom!

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Tea! Glorious Tea! This is a blend and it smells ridiculously good!

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I can't recall if I ever mentioned my love for Maharaja Chai but my Santa hit the nail on the head! It is an amazing tea. The Carmel Almond blended in makes this tea smell amazing. I immediately had to make a cup.

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So damn good!

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Candy Coal! Cinnamon Flavored! Perfect after the tea (the tea has cinnamon flavor as well)

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SantaHALTHEK!, thank you for my AWESOME gifts! You did a most excellent job! We need to keep in touch and maybe I can trade you some Dogfish Head 120 min IPAs for a batch of your local favorites! Thanks again! HAPPY MERRY!

Huh. Apparently my guerrilla Santa wasn't done with me. In addition to the beer that showed up last week, I found a huge box full of presents sitting on my new desk* when I came in this morning. I haven't opened any of the individual packages yet since I'm at work, but I'll open them up and post pictures when I get home.

Intrigued Sam is intrigued...

* - I've been working here just a bit over a month, and for a while I was sitting at a temporary desk normally reserved for contractors. My department recently moved to a new floor, and I got my permanent desk. So my Santa knew that we moved floors--which makes sense if it's one of the three Arsians who also works here (I'm pretty sure it's not one of them--unless he's lying to me). INTRIGUE!

Wow, looking at that box of the Texan pecan pie it's really striking how the Texas emblem really resemble Communist state emblems like the Soviet Union's, Belarus', or particularly this emblem of Communist Vietnam:

So, I went to check the middle refrigerator here at the office. Inside, I find this:

It's a growler of Wee Mac, an excellent scotch brown from Sun King, an equally-excellent local brewery!

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So...at this point I know that my Santa is probably one of the three other Arsians who works not only for my (new) employer, but in the very same building as me. Except one of them swears he got someone else for his Santee. Except that he could be lying. I say "probably" because it's also possible that my Santa doesn't work in my building--and in fact, may not even be local--but has recruited an inside agent to deploy tasty beer.

Honestly, I also thought this was my Sekrit Santa gift and was overjoyed at it. I was waiting for a nice, quiet evening to enjoy some of its malty goodness, when...

Yesterday morning I get another message from my Sekrit Santa, with a link to yet another video:

I make my way into the office, to see a gigantic box on my new desk (we just moved floors over the weekend). I open it up, but it's full of smaller, gift-wrapped boxes. I decide to refrain from opening it in the office (which made yesterday pretty fun).

I left work yesterday and had to stop by my parents' place before heading home, so I decided to open up the invidiaul parcels there. The package had sustained a little damage in the move. Poor Sekrit Santa label.

I open it up, and extract a veritable treasure trove of beautifully-wrapped goodies.

(I'm sensing a theme...)

First package, labeled "Eat", turns out to be...Unicorn Meat!

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The second package, also labeled "Eat", contains a snack item that I only recently said I enjoyed in a thread about said snack item's comparison with its brand-mates.

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The third item, labeled "Drink", is a sixer of Romulan Ale energy drink, of all things!(the box had a ribbon on it, but I took it off before I thought to snap a picture)

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The fourth package (also labeled "Drink") was just--oh, I'll let the pictures speak for themselves. I got a little veklempt.

Coupled with the Romulan Ale above, when I saw the picture of Kirk taped to the top of the box (with the inserted captain), I got all crazy-excited. I've always--ALWAYS!--wanted glasses like the ones Kirk has in TWoK (glass with the metal ring at the bottom). Now, this is stupid. I'm a grown-up. I can order things off of the Internet and shit. But I've never done it. So here they are! Crazy awesome glasses, heavily reminiscent of Kirk's own glassware. This was the highlight of the entire package, although the rest of it was awesome too

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Oh, more packages!

The fifth parcel, labeled "Be Merry" is a little package of expanding fake snow! Those of you who know about my preference in weather know that I've lamented the absence of real winter weather in Indiana the past couple of winters. This was a really cuite gift

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The sixth and final parcel! Yes, that's right! Six!

This one was labeled "Be Merry (And Orange)". The "orange" reference is--I'm assuming anyway--a reference to the "corporate culture" that I and my Santa share, known as "Orange" (which sounds stupid, but is actually kind of awesome).

Reverse-stalking didn't take much, I'll be honest...but I was still only able to narrow down my possible Santas to Rold Gold or masterminded (unless lyric911 was lying to me about getting someone else in the drawing )

Whichever one of you it was, thank you so much! You were in a tough spot, because you knew I wouldn't have a hard time figuring out who you were. But you leveraged the scary amount you know about me, and made up for the lack of mystery in quantity, quality and hyper-accuracy as to my hobbies and interests

Reverse-stalking didn't take much, I'll be honest...but I was still only able to narrow down my possible Santas to Rold Gold or masterminded (unless lyric911 was lying to me about getting someone else in the drawing )

Whichever one of you it was, thank you so much! You were in a tough spot, because you knew I wouldn't have a hard time figuring out who you were. But you leveraged the scary amount you know about me, and made up for the lack of mystery in quantity, quality and hyper-accuracy as to my hobbies and interests

Happy Holidays!

Well, considering that Rold Gold and masterminded didn't even sign up for SS, I'm guessing you can take those two off the list of possible Santas.